


the third of july, 2014

by puckity



Series: friends, or something like it [4]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types
Genre: Birthday Fluff, Bisexuality, Friendship/Love, M/M, Post-Serum Steve Rogers, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Slightly Resolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-24
Updated: 2014-10-24
Packaged: 2018-02-19 19:00:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,787
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2399339
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/puckity/pseuds/puckity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's just another summer night on the road chasing ghosts and packing away feelings.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the third of july, 2014

**Author's Note:**

> A very late birthday fic for Steve, inspired by some conversations I had with veterans around the fourth of July.
> 
> Written as a continuation of my 2014 Star-Spangled Fic Exchange entry and beta'd by the wonderful-as-ever Rachel!
> 
> You can also follow me on [Tumblr](http://puckity.tumblr.com/).

_This place is a dump._ Sam narrows his eyes and puts his hands on his hips and Steve has to admit that this isn’t the nicest room they’ve stayed in over the course of their little road trip.

Steve had called it a _mission_ at first—extraction, retrieval, whatever-it-took-to-get-Bucky-back mission—and Sam had called it an _adventure_ , even when Steve knew he wanted to call it a _bad idea_. After driving to Philadelphia and back on a bogus tip, they’d compromised on _road trip_.

Mostly it had been just sniffing around D.C., calling up the few ex-S.H.I.E.D. agents Steve knew weren’t HYDRA with vague hypothetical questions and bribing security guards across the city for a look at their surveillance footage. Steve thought he caught glints of metal or crushing unstoppable gaits on almost every screen, but he was careful to keep his expression neutral in front of Sam. Once he could have sworn he saw Bucky skulking around near the Smithsonian buildings but when they went to watch the security tapes chunks of time were conveniently missing and some feeds were nothing but static. Steve sat in front of the monitors for a while, staring at the people milling in and out and even though there was no sound feed he could have sworn that he heard laughing—a bitter, rattle-y laugh like screeching tires on a hot freeway and at the center a hollow, almost silent scream.

After that, Sam let him check some of the footage by himself. Steve said it was fine, that they should do it together, but Sam shook his head and tossed out some story about having other leads to follow up on and that splitting their time would be more effective. Steve knew a flimsy excuse when he heard one—he’d made up enough of them in his life to probably be considered an expert—but he just nodded and let Sam pretend like he was doing Steve a covert favor. Watching out for a fellow soldier.

Not that Steve was any good at hiding himself from Sam—he wondered sometimes how someone who’d known him for such a short amount of time could read him so well. Steve guessed that maybe he just wasn’t that hard to read, never had been, and that anyone who took the time to get to know him figured that out pretty quick. From his ma to Bucky and Peggy and Natasha and now Sam, they could take just one look at him and know what was three steps down the line in his head. They could read him, but that didn’t necessarily mean that they had him pegged.

“You want the window or the toilet?”

Steve snaps out of the mazes in his mind—they start to run deep after 95 years—and stares at Sam, eyebrow raised. Sam counters with two raised eyebrows of his own and points at the beds.

“Oh,” Steve blinks, then chuckles softly at himself. “Whichever one you don’t want is fine with me.”

“You sure?” Sam grins toothy. “I don’t know if those biscuits and gravy I had for lunch are gonna sit too well with me tonight.”

Steve doesn’t miss a beat. “Well then, I guess it’s the beautiful view of the parking lot for me.” He drops his duffel bag on the bed closest to the window and unzips, sifting between neatly rolled shirts and socks but not really looking for anything in particular.

Sam laughs as he stretches out his neck and shoulders; he did most of the driving from D.C. to the western border of Virginia because he’d said he didn’t trust Steve on the foggy Appalachian roads. Steve protested for the sake of his pride, but not especially hard because he’d never been farther south than Manassas and he kind of wanted to see the scenery. It reminded him of just how much of a stranger Captain America was to a lot of things.

“Why’s yours bigger than mine?” Steve glances between the two noticeably different-sized beds made up with thick comforters even though it’s the middle of summer and sounds more offended than he is.

“What?” Sam looks at him funny for a second and Steve is sure he’s missing something. He’s always missing something these days, but Sam doesn’t seem to hold it against him. “Oh, the beds. They were out of double rooms so it was either a queen and a double or a king.” Sam winks at him and Steve’s ears are a little warmer than the temperature warrants. “I figured you wouldn’t want to cuddle.”

It’s a joke; Steve knows it’s a joke but Sam holds his gaze for a beat longer than Steve is expecting and Steve’s chest feels like it wants to seize up,only the serum that pumps through his veins doesn’t let it—not really. Not like it could before. Steve wants to tell his cells that this isn’t asthma and it isn’t war but then he might have to tell them what it _is_ and he doesn’t know if he could do that.

“I wouldn’t have minded. Not like I never shared a bed before.” Steve goes with that and smiles safe and even.

His words must have caught Sam’s attention but he’s got his back to Steve when his shoulders stiffen a little and Steve can’t read his reaction. The only thing he says is, “Huh.”

Sam takes a shower first—says he’ll be fast—and Steve lays out on his double bed and closes his eyes just for a minute as he hears the spray of water start to hiss out of the showerhead. His hands are folded over his stomach, ankles crossed, shoes set off against the wall but socks still on and the stripes of orange sun slice through the cracked-open window and across his legs. The mountain summer is warm and sharp—not like Brooklyn or D.C. where you have to wade through the mugginess and every breath swallows a little like exhaust fumes. Here Steve can taste the tang of tree bark as he breathes the pollen-thick air in slow. When a crisp breeze kicks up it surprises him, but not enough to make him get up and shut the curtain.

Things are quiet but not silent. There’s a rustle, a crunching of gravel, maybe a T.V. going a few rooms over. Every once in a while, a car speeds past on the state road that runs in front of the motel. And the steady stream of the shower; Steve listens to that. Listens to Sam humming, maybe singing softly and a little off-key—although Steve’s no singer so what would he know about it—and the slices of sunlight drift down towards Steve’s knees.

A fog descends and he drifts through it, thinks he should be looking for something but hasn’t got an idea of what that might be. The haze sticks to the parts of him that are starting to wear with age; it coats the stress fractures on his soul. He’s sinking and it isn’t a bad thing—it wraps him up like frayed blankets on a Brooklyn floor that would always be warmer than the fancy comforters S.H.I.E.L.D. spreads over his too-big, too-soft D.C. bed.

Suddenly a blitz tears through the fog. It’s 1944, a bomb on the German border or it’s last year, an alien blaster in Manhattan or it’s last month, a grenade launcher on the Causeway. Steve jerks awake—he didn’t know he’d been asleep—and reaches for his shield, running on instinct. The phantom arms that had been holding him in the haze are now frigid metal fingers around his neck. Squeezing. Crushing. Steve is up and braced against the motel room door before Sam gets the chance to say anything at all.

“Cap…” Sam is standing between the beds, arms outstretched palms up but not moving forward. Not moving towards Steve.

There’s a clear shot through the half-open curtains and Sam’s right in the line of fire. He’s in his boxers and a fresh shirt and his wings are tucked away in the closet; he’s exposed. Steve’s stomach drops like he just swallowed a bag of rocks—it bottoms out and he whispers hoarse and frantic, “Sam, get down!”

The expression on Sam’s face changes. His eyebrows come down and his mouth falls at the corners. Something painful seeps into his voice. “Steve, it’s okay.”

Steve doesn’t understand. He’s not crazy—after everything they’d been through in Washington an ambush wouldn’t be all that implausible. And Steve’s ready; he’s always ready because when he isn’t that’s when he loses people. Colonel Phillips had told him that if he was gonna be a captain he had to accept the fact that soldiers don’t always come back and the mission goes on whether the roster is full or not and Steve had saluted strong, “Yes, sir.” But deep in his bones—in his blood and his nerves and the pulse that kept him going—Steve hadn’t accepted that. His soldiers would always come back, one way or another, though he preferred some returns more than others.

Sam is closer now, reaching out and gripping the vibranium with both hands. “Steve, I’ll put this away for you.”

Steve lets go without knowing why; the shield slides off his arm like he’s just a kid playing dress-up. There’s something in Sam’s eyes, in the strained pull of the smile that he gives Steve, that makes Steve trust him. There are so few people in his life right now that Steve can trust without peeling away layers of manipulation or secrets or personal agendas—it gets exhausting, even for Captain America. But Steve trusts Sam, has from the first day they met. Trusts him to fight by his side, to have his back no matter what, to do what needs to be done. Trusts him to understand, even when Steve doesn’t. Trusts him to take care of Steve, even if Steve would never ask him to.

Trusts him not to freak out when Captain America starts imagining explosions at rundown roadside motels.

“Am I hearing things now?” Steve slumps down against the door and rests his head in his hands. He’s not sure who he’s trying to convince but he adds, “I’m not crazy.”

Sam chuckles but it seems more out of habit than humor. “No, you’re not crazy and you’re not hearing things. We’ve been so busy that I lost track of the day but…” He trails off, turns back to Steve like he’s expecting him to finish his sentence for him.

“But?” If it’s a game, Steve doesn’t get it.

“What’s tomorrow, man?” Sam smiles a little wider now and it’s infectious because Steve’s mouth twitches too. “Other than your birthday.”

Steve’s forehead furrows. “Is it July 4th already?”

“Must be.” Sam sets the shield against the closet door and drops down onto the edge of his bed. “Because those were fireworks.”

And things make sense now. Steve remembers sitting on the docks and watching bursts of shimmer and light crash above the New York skyline. He remembers double dates some years and just him and Buck others, nudging shoulders and sharing three scoops of ice cream between them. He remembers hands touching and whiffs of caramel and brine and sparks that no one but them could see. Then the war and the bang and sizzle lost some of its appeal. He remembers the one July he’d spent in Europe; they’d been out on a mission over the 4th but when the Commandoes got back to camp they found packets of sparklers in their tents. Peggy had smuggled them in. They all sat around the fire that night and Steve had watched the light and shadows dance across her face, burning deep into her eyes. Like candles over dinner at a fancy restaurant and Peggy teaching him how to dance after, if it’d been another life.

Now it’s his birthday again—the first one he’s really had since 1943—and he’s spending it with Sam, hiding in flashbacks. Spending it barricaded in a dingy room with one bed too many. Spending it running from and chasing down the past.

Steve stretches his legs out and folds his hands in his lap and feels Sam’s foot push against his.

“You alright?”

Steve nods, leans his head back against the warped wood but doesn’t look Sam in the face.

Sam pauses and Steve can see him scratching at the back of his neck out of the corner of his eye. “Is there anything Captain America wants for his birthday? Anything you could find at a country general store—since I didn’t get a chance to go shopping before we left D.C.?”

Steve is about to say no, automatically because Sam doesn’t owe him anything, but then he stops and remembers what Natasha had suggested he try doing before she took off to remake herself: learn what he wants. He considers _want_ in a way that he hasn’t let himself do since his ma died, at least, and reaches a conclusion.

“Ice cream would be nice.” He tries to offer a soft grin but the way he catches Sam looking at him makes his ears flush hot and the push of _want_ surges up against the gate of _protect_ , both Sam and himself.

Sam coughs over a dry laugh. “Any flavor in particular?”

Steve’s still looking at him, won’t drop his gaze and let Sam see two stumbles of weakness in twenty minutes. His lips twist playful and his skills are so rusty that they almost creak with the effort. “Surprise me.”

Sam snorts, gets up and puts his pants back on and Steve shoves up off the floor to give himself something to do other than stare at his half-dressed partner in the fading light.

\---

The sky has smudged from orange to blue by the time Sam gets back and Steve is sitting on the hood of the old four-door that Fury tossed them keys to before he jumped off the grid. It’s seen better days but it runs solid and dependable and Steve’s never been much of a car enthusiast but he thinks he might be developing a soft spot for this one. He’s not about to trade in his motorcycle—but he can admit that a car, _this_ car, has its benefits. Like more comfortable room for two.

“Get off,” Sam scolds with a lopsided grin and a smack on Steve’s shin, a plastic bag knocking against his hip. “You’re gonna break it.”

“Oh, you’re gonna be like that on my birthday?” Steve grabs for the bag but Sam pulls back playful and Steve sometimes forgets that the serum’s effects didn’t include super speed.

“It ain’t your birthday yet.” Sam is laughing, distracted, eyes crinkled and Steve is a little distracted himself but not enough to make him lose sight of the target.

Steve reaches out fast, fingers closing around Sam’s wrists not tight or restricting just firm. Solid like the car, like their trust, like the gravel beneath Sam’s shoes and the weight of Steve’s convictions. The lines at the corners of Sam’s eyes smooth and he looks at Steve, deep and even. Solid. His fingers, stamped with stray calluses, twine up and break Steve’s grip on his wrists. Sam realigns and knots their hands together; the plastic bag swings between them and Steve almost forgets why.

He hasn’t felt—he hasn’t felt like this since—

And Steve can’t remember feeling like this before. It’s not that he’s never felt like _this_ —sticky throat and sticky palms with a heartbeat too strong and a ribcage too weak—it’s just that every time it’s different. Bucky is the boom of firecrackers—sudden and intense and too hot too fast to contain in the moment but it shimmers down after, delicate and beautiful and Steve is always starstruck. Peggy is the flicker of candles—bright and steady and deceptively hard to snuff out; it burns on under Steve’s skin and into the darkness. But Sam—Sam is an oil lamp, an eternal flame. Sam lights low and it took a while for Steve to even know he was there but now he can’t shake him. Sam persists through storms—the world’s and Steve’s own—and Steve’s too-long nights are more bearable with Sam there too. Sam is comfort, resilient and stubborn and his gentle heat rekindles something in Steve that all of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s de-freeze procedures couldn’t get to. Something that all of their missions and orders couldn’t reignite.

Sam pinches at Steve’s knuckle with his thumbnail. “Your present’s gonna melt.”

Steve shrugs. He looks up at Sam and a half-smile tugs coy at his lips. “So?”

“So,” Sam arches an eyebrow. “I bought this for you and I’m gonna be pissed if you don’t even _try_ to eat it.”

“Fair enough.” Steve drops his gaze and lets go of one of Sam’s hands. He rummages through the bag and pulls out two identical popsicles and doesn’t have to glance up to know that Sam is biting down hard on his bottom lip to keep from barking out laughter.

“Really?” It’s the only thing Steve can think to ask—because what else is there to say to red, white, and blue sticks of ice coated in what Steve’s hopes is non-toxic glitter and encased in a wrapper with Captain America’s shellacked-on smile and salute of approval staring back at him? When Stark had approached him about the endorsement offer, the irony hadn’t been lost on Steve.

Sam isn’t even fighting it anymore and his laughs are like hiccups that make his whole body shake. “I thought it would be appropriate.”

Steve glares like he’s 90 pounds of pride and fight again. “Yeah, I bet you did.” He rips into the wrapper and sucks down the cold slick once, sloppy for show. The crystals must be sugar because the sweet bites at the back of his throat like bee stings. Sam is staring and Steve can feel the swell start—he swallows against it but there’s a bitter aftertaste and he thinks that he’s not so sure about lending his future support to this kind of mediocre product.

He licks around the top, focuses on the artificial strawberry that tastes more like freezer burn than anything else, and appreciates how Sam chokes a little when his tongue catches at the melting drips down.

“You’re gonna have to do some more Internet research, Cap.” Sam clears his throat hoarse and leans back against the bumper but doesn’t sit down. He opens his popsicle and settles for teeth instead of tongue, wincing as he chews through the ice. “Otherwise people might start taking some of the stuff you say—and _do_ —the wrong way.”

“Oh, yeah?” Steve stops, lets the hand holding the popsicle fall between his knees and turns to watch Sam’s profile cut against the muted dusk. “Who says I don’t _mean_ it the wrong way?”

Sam stills; he wasn’t really moving to begin with but the car lurches as he leans back heavy and stops gnawing uneven at the sides of his popsicle. Steve realizes that they’re still holding hands, loose like a habit, fingers like hooks weaving in and out of each other.

“Sam.” And Steve’s reckless—like he’s always been—like taking the first swing and jumping without a parachute and believing long after it’s beyond foolish to do so. Steve brings Sam’s fingers to his lips, swollen with sugar and cold, and kisses his knuckles soft and dry. Laces and unlaces their hands and stares at the pink edge of Sam’s nails or the hairs pricking up on his arm or the dip in the middle of his collarbone or the tic in his jaw—stares at anything that isn’t Sam’s calm eyes placating the flush that Steve’s skin can’t hide. He tugs at Sam but doesn’t really expect him to move so when Sam tilts towards him Steve’s thrown—he almost forgets what it was he was trying to do in the first place.

Sam’s breath against his cheek reminds him as well as anything. Just an inch up—not a leap, barely a shuffle—and Steve’s warm on his lips. It’s awkward with the popsicles and probably more than a little risky out in the middle of the mountains when they don’t have superhero uniforms to shield them from hostility. Out here they’re not Captain America and the Falcon—not that that wouldn’t cause its own stir—they’re just two guys kissing on the hood of a car. And that’s what Steve _wants_ ; he wants _Sam_ not the Falcon but he’s not entirely sure that the good people of Bland, Virginia would understand it the same way he does. But for a second—one second longer—Steve can justify the risk.

When he pulls back and licks his lips on instinct he’s not sure if it’s Sam or the popsicle but the taste has grown on him. He wants to lean in again, close the space and let the half-melted stick of syrupy freeze drop down onto the cracked asphalt so he can kiss Sam proper, with both hands. He wants to lie back on the grimy metal—ignoring the paint chips as they dig into his shoulder blades and the stink of motor oil as it buzzes up behind his eyes—and pull Sam over him like a blanket, or flip them so he’s on top looking down at Sam flustered and indignant. Steve thinks he’d like to see that. He wants to kiss Sam hungry but not starving and touch him and be touched and fall asleep knowing that when he opens his eyes they’ll be at least one thing still right in the world. And alright, Steve admits, maybe he’s a little more than just hungry—but he tells himself that 70 years without would do that to anyone.

“It isn’t fair, you know that?” Sam’s lips hardly move.

Steve looks up, catches Sam’s gaze now and it’s not as calm as he expected. “What’s not fair?”

“It’s your birthday,” Sam’s eyes dip low—almost shy—and Steve’s lungs stutter against his ribs. “But I’m the one getting a present.”

And Steve laughs at that. Laughs hard like he hasn’t in years, laughs so loud that he has to swing away from Sam just so he doesn’t knock him over with the force of it. Steve laughs until he can tell that it’s really starting to bug Sam and only then does he make an effort to swallow back all but a few chuckles.

“Jesus Sam, what a line.” Steve jabs him in the arm with his elbow and they both rock with the motion. “You could’ve given Bucky a run for his money, back in the day.” The chuckles die down abrupt and Steve doesn’t realize he’s not laughing anymore until he feels the tight creases creep back across his forehead.

They’ve dropped hands and Steve thinks Sam is probably going to push off the hood anytime now, making excuses about popsicles turning into puddles or needing to wash the sticky off his hands or anything else that might be a reasonable excuse to put some distance between them. Steve doesn’t want him to go but he won’t stop him—Sam doesn’t owe him staying.

But Sam doesn’t go. They sit quiet and stare out into the parking lot as the night starts to eat everything that’s out of reach of the streetlights. A few more fireworks go off over the tree line—they rupture against the stars like they’re fighting for their place in the sky—and Steve only flinches once with each explosion. And it might be his imagination but he thinks that Sam slides in a little more after the flares fade.

“You know, it was more of a gift to myself than a present for you.” They’re shoulder to shoulder and there’s no pretending now, no pretending that Sam didn’t shift close or that Steve didn’t mean it or that they both don’t know what’s going on here. Steve bounces his heels on the bumper and scratches at the hair behind his ear.

“Well, in that case, is there something else I can give you?” Sam drums an uneven beat out on the dusty hood. “I mean, other than the amazing present you already got from me.” He flashes a cocky grin and tosses the rest of his uneaten popsicle into the grocery story bag before offering it over to Steve.

Steve drops half of the white and all of the blue in, then pins Sam with a look—bold and direct and he quirks up an eyebrow for good measure. “You got room for one more on that bed of yours?”

If Sam slips, he’s fast enough to catch it before Steve does. His tongue pokes through his teeth. “Yeah, I think I just might.”

\---

They stumble into the room punchy on sugar and uncertainty and Steve does his best not to lunge at Sam and bowl him over. Steve wants to kiss him slow like zipping down a fancy dress but he’s too enthusiastic about it and the rhythm is choppy and jumbled but Sam doesn’t seem to mind. Steve’s got his fingers wedged under the waist of Sam’s jeans and Sam’s palms are rubbing hot at the small of his back and he rocks in but suddenly all the voices—of reason, of honor, of sacrifice and duty and himself last of all—rise up and he can barely hear over the din. A bomb or a grenade or a firecracker goes off in the distance, or maybe just in the reservoirs of his memory, and he breaks back—stares wide at Sam and the bed and back at Sam again.

It’s not his first time, but then again maybe it is. First time in this new world, in a life lived backwards and upside down. First time with Sam but they’re not alone, haven’t been alone since the Causeway and Steve’s not sure if he’s ready for an audience just yet.

Sam’s voice is like a tether, like a buoy in the black ocean and Steve didn’t even know he was drowning.

“Steve? _Steve._ ” Sam’s hands grip tight, hold onto Steve by the waist and keep him afloat. “Whatever you want—whatever you need. It’s fine.”

There it is again— _want_. But then need, and Steve’s even less sure of that. Steve needs, he needs—Steve tries out the phrases in his head but they fall clunky and uncomfortable and it doesn’t even matter because Steve doesn’t know how to finish that sentence at all.

_I need—_

Steve needs safe. He needs family and familiar and home. He needs to sleep without dreaming of chasms and cracked shields. He needs to be sure of something—anything—in the world.

But he is sure of Sam. He _needs_ Sam, in all the ways he can, and maybe tonight need outweighs want and Sam is telling him that’s okay.

Steve pulls Sam in tight and inhales deep against the crook of his neck. The long press of Sam’s body stirs a heat in Steve’s stomach but he has time, they have time. There’s no countdown running on them now.

“Can we just…be together tonight?” Steve worries that there’ll be disappointment, misunderstanding, that he’s blown it and he won’t get this kind of chance again. He trails his lips along the pull of Sam’s shoulder muscles and hopes that Sam gets it, because he doesn’t seem to have any more words left to explain.

Sam’s thumbs work circles over the knots under Steve’s skin and Steve knows without hearing it that Sam understands. He doesn’t know why he doubted it in the first place.

“Of course.”

Sam works Steve’s t-shirt up and over his head and Steve lets him. Steve goes to the bathroom to wash up and when he comes out Sam’s matching him in his boxers and undershirt. They crawl into the queen-sized bed and it’s not really big enough for two soldiers—super or otherwise—but they’ll make due. Sam lies on his back and wraps his arms around Steve and Steve huddles into his chest and tangles their legs. And when Steve closes his eyes it’s a sweet ache under his lungs that finally follows him into a place where battles are already won and metal wings fly sharp, unmanned, never falling from the cloudless stretch of blue and forever.


End file.
